[John H K]

The record of embeddeds who are not qualified at all to assess WMD claims, interacting with US military personnel low on the chain of command in the field (who I am sure are fine, qualified folk at their level but they really aren't careful about what they say or claim, or how its interpreted) has been pretty bad so far; but not because of any malicious lying or fabrication, of course.

I'm sure anything that checks out fully will be announced by Franks or Rumsfeld.

Of course, up till now, people have been claiming we wouldn't announce anything because we were afraid the Iraqis would then use it. And from now on, people will claim we won't announce any WMD finds in order to "not panic the public" or some such nonsense.

[Coop]

The record of embeddeds who are not qualified at all to assess WMD claims, interacting with US military personnel low on the chain of command in the field (who I am sure are fine, qualified folk at their level but they really aren't careful about what they say or claim, or how its interpreted) has been pretty bad so far; but not because of any malicious lying or fabrication, of course.

I agree with you completely. But as I mentioned before I think in most cases the reporters from all networks do a nice job of adding qualifiers ("possibly," "suspected") when reporting. It's the professional approach. But we often skip over or misinterpret those words in our excitement.